She waited.
Max gulped and then began. "I’ve lived my life thinking I would never marry. Because of my father’s secrets.” Max spoke around the lump in his throat. “I think you know this.”
“Yes.” Her eyes searched his face, listening, waiting for him to continue.
“You know he was an impostor. Which makes me one as well.”
“Go on.”
He inhaled. “I’d convinced myself I couldn’t burden my bride with the same lie. And I know how you feel about the truth.”
He needed to get this out.
"I am not the true Earl of Helton.” He would make himself very clear. “For my mother’s sake, I’ve never said anything. She’d lose her status, possibly most of her friends. They are everything to her.”
“They mean more to her than her son?”
“No. Of course not. She loves me, but it’s complicated. She just…”
“She is happy with her life.”
“Yes.”
Her immediate understanding shouldn’t have surprised him. She understood loyalty. And she quite possibly understood Max more than he did himself.
A clock on the mantel ticked loudly until Caroline reached across the space between them, touching her fingertips to his hand.
“Then we needn’t address it. But Max, you are not your father. It’s not your duty to answer for his sins.”
Her words hung in the air and then… the backs of his eyes burned and he felt lighter.
Just a few words from Caroline Rutherford and the years he’d spent hiding the truth fell away.
It was time he got to the point.
“I had planned on renouncing eventually, but doing so would leave the title dormant. I avoid visiting Hell House but I make sure the tenants’ needs are met. I also realize the surrounding area depends on the estate. People depend on me whether I want them to or not. So I live this lie. Is it fair to ask you to live it with me?”
Emotion welled up in his throat, almost closing it.
Standing in the middle of her mother’s drawing room, she stared up at him, her sapphire eyes dancing. “Is that your proposal?” Was this minx laughing at him?
“Caroline,” he warned.
But she stopped him by uttering a single syllable.
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Of course I’ll marry you.”
Wait! He hadn’t officially proposed yet. She might have already answered, but seeing as he’d failed to properly court her, he’d do this one thing right, at the very least.
Feeling foolish but determined, he dropped to one knee. He then reached into his pocket and produced a small velvet box.
His mother had wanted him to use a family heirloom, but he’d declined the offer, preferring to begin their lives together with a symbol not connected to his ill-gotten legacy. The ring was set in silver, tiny diamonds surrounding a massive ice blue sapphire, like the petals of a flower. He’d searched for a blue that would match the brilliant color of her eyes, but nothing could compare.
“It’s beautiful,” she gasped.
